Hard Drive question...

[viracocha711]

I have an old Dell Dimension 2400 that had some liquid spilt into the USB ports and now it will not boot up...It just makes odd noses and nothing more...The hard drive has some family photos along with some important documents blah blah blah. How can I get this data off the hard drive? Can I simply hook the hard drive up to another computer or is it even possible to retrieve the data given there is nothing wrong with the hard drive itself?

Thanks!

[EzyStvy]

You should be able to "slave" the drive to another pc provided it didn't get fried with the rest of the machine...

Once completed - develop a back plan;)

[viracocha711]

If the HD is fried is there any chance that it could damage the computer I "slave" it to?

...And yes! I am going to start a back-up plan for my new computer. Thanks!

[Cricket]

If the HD is fried is there any chance that it could damage the computer I "slave" it to? No, not much chance of damaging the computer it's connected to. It just won't start up.

:) Cricket

[viracocha711]

I just want to check with you guys to make sure I know what I am doing...With the power off and the computer unplugged, I hook the HD power and data cables up, then boot the system into the bios setup where I hope the system recognizes the HD, then set it to slave?

I really appreciate this help!

[Cricket]

What kind of hard drive is it? IDE or SATA?

If IDE, check to see what the jumper is set to...since it's from a DELL it's probably set to CS (cable select).

Do you know what type of IDE cable is in the computer you plan to install it in? 40 wire or 80 wire?

And what kind of computer are you installing this hard drive into? Another DELL? A home built?

If it's another DELL leave the jumper set to CS.

If it's a home built with a 40 wire IDE cable set it to master or slave (depending on whether or not you connect it to a IDE cable with an existing drive or not).

If it's a 80 wire IDE cable set the jumper to CS.

Once you power the computer up, go into the BIOS to see if the hard drive is recognized or not.

:) Cricket

[viracocha711]

OK, the HD is a IDE, the jumpers are set to CS (16 head?) I think the IDE cable is 40, or 39 with the one pin hole blocked, the computer I would be hooking it up to is a new build. (Asus P5k-e MB, Intel Q6600, 2x 1gb ram DDR2, 500 GB SATA HD, BFG 8800gt-oc2, VISTA Ult. 64bit)

Since I already have a HD in the new build that I want to keep as the master, I need to set the jumpers to "slave" correct? Another question...Will there be any issues with the fact Windows XP Home OS is on the IDE drive? Or will it not matter since it will be set to slave? And once I copy the data I need to another drive or DVD, how would I go about erasing the OS from the IDE drive so that I could use the HD in a new build for my niece. It is a 80GB HD so I would like to utilize it if possible.

I know I ask alot of questions and I hope I am not being a pain...You have already helped turn on many light bulbs for me and I appreciate the help very much!

[glc]

Will you have any IDE devices in your new build? Your list shows a SATA hard drive, what are you going to use for an optical? If SATA, no problem. Use the IDE cable to connect the old drive - AFTER you get the operating system installed - and leave the jumpers as they are. Just make sure your SATA drive is set first in the boot order. If you are going to use an IDE optical, you will connect both it and the old drive to the IDE cable, and set the optical drive jumper to CS.

After copying the data, use Disk Management in Windows to delete the 3 partitions from the old drive and then remove it.